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Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3026, 5 December 1891, Page 2

The announcement that the New Zealand Estates Company are about to submit for sale by public auction, in small and convenient-sized sections, a very large area of good land in the South, is an intimation that cannot be regarded but with extreme gratification by all classes of the community, and this for several reasons. Not only will the proposed step be the means of permanently settling a considerable number of working farmers on good holdings to the manifest benefit of themselves and the colony at large, but it also proves in an unmistakeable manner that the Estates Company is steadily following up the policy for which it was created—to realise leisurely and to the best advantage the large blocks of land which, during the last few years, had, owing to various causes, been practically forced into the possession of the Bank of New Zealand. A small aud what they are pleasod to term themselves, "liberal" section of the colonial Press, has been for some time past raising a howl of virtuous indignation at an English company holding so much of our land, evidently overlooking for their own purposes the surrounding circumstances of the cuse. Even if it were not so, we fail to see why any one investing in our land to the undoubted l-elief and benefit of others should be so particularly held up to execration. Further, it must be admitted that a very large proportion of New Zealand laud iu its original state is quite unsuited for occupation by small settlers, but directly these blocks become sufficiently improved and accessible to be worked in moderate sized holdings, practical stops to cut them up will always be takeu. It is simply a matter of business and it stands to reason that a scoro or more of families employing the whole of their skill and energy upon small blocks will always produce a larger return from a given avea than can ever bo obtained by a company employing only a limited amount of hired labour. _ The cutting iip of largo blocks is in ovory case thorofore only a matter of time.